I wonder if Dr Rhonda Farkota can kill and prep a chicken for the table.

I was unimpressed by the SMH articles, and I have concerns with Dr Farkota's article as well.

No-one, to my mind, has actually been able to articulate what is a good education. Fit for what purpose? What should a school be like? Is an industrial age, learning factory model the most effective way to educate children today?

We are dominated by syllabus outcomes imposed in a top-down mode; we have teachers who are, more-and-more, being treated as unskilled workers who can only be trusted to teach these externally imposed syllabuses, where "explicit instruction" mandates what and how something will be taught; and there little concomitant upskilling of teachers to *understand* the *why* for teaching in that way.

I recognise that many of my erstwhile colleagues are more like tradespersons than "professionals", but I would argue that organisations like ACER, state and federal departments of education, and the Board of Studies have pushed the de-skilling as a form of control.

What does *real* learning look like? What are the real outcomes we should be pursuing?

Hard to disagree with what Rhonda Farkota says about the need for some teacher-directed learning to be incorporated with the student-directed learning of numeracy and mathematics. There are unquestionably some elements of numeracy and maths which are unfashionably unsusceptible to a heuristic learning approach. They need to be taught to students by someone who knows the points which are most likely to cause confusion to the learner. And then they need to be practised for mastery. Only then will they be ready to use for some discovery learning.
I'm not too convinced, however, that the "highly effective, research-based, teacher-directed programs out there, requiring no preparation and no mathematical expertise to implement" wouldn't be a bit more effective if they were administered by a good teacher who DID have a bit of mathematical expertise. Dr. Farkota seems to fall for the trap of thinking that anybody can be a good teacher of primary and junior secondary maths. She's not the only one. Most secondary school administrators, when faced with the job of finding someone to teach a junior maths class, are quite happy to subscribe to this view. It is this attitude that causes the situation her article describes to worsen.
Train and employ and PAY excellent young graduates to teach maths at junior secondary levels if you want to stop the bleeding.
Ajax

What is going on in this silly article? I completed my HSC 4 yrs ago and can assure you that the best way of learning Maths is to actually do it. Solve as many problems as you possibly can. Screw teacher/student directed nonsense, the best teachers I ever had gave me worksheet after worksheet. I used to refuse worksheets that included silly drawings which were so obviously pathetic attempts to 'encourage' you or make math 'fun'. Good teachers also let you work ahead of the other students. Feeling better or more intelligent than other students works wonders for the young mind.

My only experience as a teacher has been at University, but I still employed the basic method strayan recommends, lots of problems. It worked well in my education at every level and it let me know who in my classes "got it" and who struggled. When I went to those who struggled, we could work through several problems, so they could organise the ideas in their minds for all the problems, not just one or two.

Understanding and being comfortable with maths is crucial to being comfortable with science. Understanding science and maths will be critical to the worlds future because there are lots of big decisions that have to be made on a popular level that involve science and maths. Issues regarding the environment, the economy, energy and resources all require understanding maths. If the issues are not understood at a popular level, the politicians will not react and we will continue on with business as usual. The result will be further degradation of the environment, depletion of resources and hard times for the economy.

I hope these new efforts will be successful in improving the standard of maths education, for all of our sakes.

Another issue to consider is that if you like History or English in High School or University, the best job you can usually get is as a teacher. If you like Maths and Science there are some higher paying and more prestigous jobs. That means that the best people in History and English are teaching, but the best people in Science and Maths are not.

The best people then rise to be principals and top executives and take their expertise in English and History with them. When there are curriculum problems or special methods are needed to improve History and English teaching, the school executive have the answers. When there are problems teaching Maths and Science the top executive is not as well prepared. The same may also be true of the University Lecturers teaching education. If the Lecturers are more familiar with English and History they will be more comfortable describing methods for teahcing those subjects rather than maths.

The teachers unions and probably the public in general, won't allow maths and science teachers to be paid more or have other incentives offered, than other teachers. That means that it is harder to attract good maths and science teachers.

This logic would not seem to affect primary school teachers who must teach all subjects, but it may be that the same bias that may exist through the whole system also impacts primary school teachers.